The Business That Tweeted Wolf!

 I think most of us have read the story about the boy who cried Wolf. The story goes that little shepherd boy just for fun would raise the alarm in his village by crying wolf. The villagers naturally would come running to save the boy, only to discover that the boy was only playing games with them. Well not surprisingly one-day a wolf really did come in when the boy cried for help there was no villager that would come.

Especially in social media marketing, I see a lot of businesses crying wolf. I have noticed a lot of people that send out messages on twitter, with the request please RT, with a link to their site. Well when I first see this,I check out the link. Is this the launch of a new product or service? Is this a link to a special announcement? Do they want me to RT a special offer? No. It is just a leak to a blog post they wrote, in almost every occasion.

Here is the problem with this approach. When these people really do have something to announce or launch, they will get a lot of resistance from their followers. By always requesting a re-tweet on all their work, they cheapen the request.

Conversely, when you seldom ask your social network to help you share something, they respond extremely well. That's where the magic is!

A while ago, I sent out a link to my followers and asked him to re-tweet it. All day I saw people re-tweeting that link everywhere. The link was to a site that had information on a missing child. The beginning of the Tweet said please RT. So I got people's attention, because my followers are not used to seeing anything from me that asked for a re-tweet.

Form as much integrity and confidence as you can with the villagers in your social network. Be a foundation of true value and assistance. Then, from what I have seen, if you need their help was something a important they will gladly want to help you and in great numbers too.